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Saturday, July 23, 2011

Time to act - we’re running out of time

Today was the President’s deadline for reaching an agreement so legislation could be passed and signed into law before the debt ceiling is reached on August 2nd. But once again, talks between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner fell apart.

Essentially what we had offered Speaker Boehner was over a trillion dollars in cuts to discretionary spending, both domestic and defense. We then offered an additional $650 billion in cuts to entitlement programs -- Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. We believed that it was possible to shape those in a way that preserved the integrity of the system, made them available for the next generation, and did not affect current beneficiaries in an adverse way.

In addition, what we sought was ... $1.2 trillion in additional revenues, which could be accomplished without hiking taxes -- tax rates, but could simply be accomplished by eliminating loopholes, eliminating some deductions and engaging in a tax reform process that could have lowered rates generally while broadening the base.

.... We were offering a deal that called for as much discretionary savings as the Gang of Six. We were calling for taxes that were less than what the Gang of Six had proposed. And we were calling for modifications to entitlement programs, would have saved just as much over the 10-year window. In other words, this was an extraordinarily fair deal. If it was unbalanced, it was unbalanced in the direction of not enough revenue.

Here's what he said the Republican rejection means:

Now, if you do not have any revenues, as the most recent Republican plan that’s been put forward both in the House and the Senate proposed, if you have no revenues at all, what that means is more of a burden on seniors, more drastic cuts to education, more drastic cuts to research, a bigger burden on services that are going to middle-class families all across the country. And it essentially asks nothing of corporate jet owners, it asks nothing of oil and gas companies, it asks nothing from folks like me who’ve done extremely well and can afford to do a little bit more.

In other words, if you don’t have revenues, the entire thing ends up being tilted on the backs of the poor and middle-class families. And the majority of Americans don’t agree on that approach.

We're running out of time, and the people WE elected to represent us aren't getting the job done.

Have they heard from you yet?

Take a few minutes RIGHT NOW and tell your representatives in the House and Senate what you want them to do.

I am extremely disappointed with Washington's inability to reach agreement on a way to raise the debt ceiling and avoid default on our obligations. I urge you to work with the President to achieve a deficit-reduction package that includes both revenue and spending cuts, and raise the debt ceiling this week. Please - stop this gridlock in Washington.

Feel free to use this message, or compose your own. The important thing is to flood Congress with emails this weekend.